You left those guys holding the bag. YOU became the enemy in that war. The traders who were the most loyal to you, the ones who stayed until the end, those are the ones that you stuck it too in order to protect your own money. And that's what it was all about. Your money was more important than theirs. Forget about the many many millions that you made from those guys. Those guys were no longer important to you and so you left them and their money to fight your landlords and your debts. To this day they are still holding the bag, their money is where YOURS ought to be. That is your idea of a long term relationship I suppose. These words meant nothing then and they mean less than nothing now.
Monster traders back then, but the market was also much easier. Walter let me in but the traders on the desk taught me the skills to survive. Worldco was a stepping stone for many ppl, even if they moved onto other things besides trading. I was just lucky I got out in '01. Btw, Phen Phen got laid off right before all the craziness started at worldco. Saw her at a restaurant in flushing last year.
i just heard he has a oceanfront estate in florida that he hangs in bwtween asian trips.........and that he spends time in boston to recruit for his cos...................caint wait for worldco2..............m.....mabye then we will all make money again...
the market will get easier ......things take time go through cycles.....when walts hegde fund opens.....that will be the time to trade on a large scale....probably 09 until it gets great again......m
What really killed trading was decimilation, the proliferation of boxes, and NX, which made the art of tape-reading much harder. If the up-tick rule goes away completely that is another lost edge (for those who use conversions). None of those things will be reversed, so I don't think we will see again a market like we had in late 90s-00.
to hamlet .....well said ........... their has been a sea change in the markets nx......... decimalization..........black boxes..........changes in laws for married puts..............911..............lowering intrest rates in the early 2000s.........the bursting of the dot com bubble.............an increasingly hevy regulatory enviorment.......the fact that internet trading is not new anymore.....the big firms push into the intra day trading bis ie etrade ...........the volitility crash.......and the volume slumber....all combined into a whirlwind that badly hurt the equity trader.....and the changes that are on the way are all crushing as well especially on the nyse...................no one becides the traders want a guy to be able to sit in front of a screen and make 7000 a day electronically....................to be able to do that in the futre we must turn to new markets with wide spreads .....only markets that are semi inefficent with wide spreads and good volume hold that promise ......those markets are global raw commodities trading and real estate speculation and development.....even mortgage brokerage is pretty good......m
after all who wants to sit their and make 4 or 8 cents on a stock in a trade ...........that used to be just the comission in the very early 90es.....and now its the whole profit .......where in the 21 century now.....worldco was a 20 th century firm......tight markets and circular trading is not what were supposd to be into...........were truly supposed to buy low and sell high.....their are hot fast big markets out their but you have to be able to reinvent yourself to trade them...............and only when and if you do will it feel like old times...........................m
I see the old spurious-correlation, 'decimalization killed daytrading' myth still has a few believers left. So I'll just set the record straight, again: Remember back in the champagne and caviar days when CMGI, YHOO, SDLI, QCOM and friends moved 30, 40 points a day? Those stocks traded in 64ths, not nickels. 64ths, pennies... it makes no difference. Penny spreads isn't what killed our party, folks. We lost the massive inflows of dumb money. Janus, Invesco and all the other short-bus managers are no longer blindly pumping billions into any stock du jour. That's why the easiest money is gone. Penny spreads have nothing to do with it.